The National Post has some writers taking a stronger line on Harper these days.
Predictably there is a flood of support in the letters to the editor with all the same old tired excuses about his relative lack of success. Here was my reply to a clear partisan this morning.
It was published this morning, in edited form.

Hi:

In his letter portraying Mr. Harper as a victim Mr. Klatt uses many excuses, including "If he was from Toronto or Montreal he would have had his majority long ago." Well Mr. Harper is from Toronto and personally as someone who went to the same school at about the same time Mr Harper did in Toronto (John G Althouse) I can state that any locality that may have been once shared would certainly not encourage me to vote for anyone so reckless of the economy as Mr. Harper has been.

Mr. Chrétien's "12 grim years" as described in the letter (it was 10) are credited by economists as the period when Canada did the best job of turning around the public finances of any G7 country. I can only shudder to think how bad the current recession would have been without the fiscal prudence of Mr. Chrétien to balance the two deficit binges of Mr. Mulroney and Mr Harper, both of whom set new record high deficits. While clearly the writer (in Calgary) values Mr. Harper's perceived locality over his grim record fortunately many voters do not.